The Way I Love Her
by Helena Mira
Summary: What would Bella had heard if she stayed awake longer during that night in the tent before the big battle in Eclipse. What else would Edward have learned about Jacob? Totally Team Edward. A revision of a previous story. Please review.
1. What She Wants

**The Way I Love Her**

_Disclaimer: All the characters in the story are the property of Stephanie Meyer. I have borrowed them for my entertainment and (hopefully) your reading pleasure. I make no profit from their use._

**This is how I imagine that it would have happened if Edward and Jacob had continued talking in the tent before the big battle in **_**Eclipse.**_**It's an idea that I have been kicking around for a while. **

**It came to me after reading **_**Midnight Sun **_**and Stephanie Meyer's description of how Edward came to love Bella with so much depth and emotion. **

**I have also incorporated some elements based on the **_**Twilight Saga: Official Illustrated Guide.**_** Let me know what you think and if you are interested in any more. **

**Chapter 1: What She Wants**

It is a long, cold night up here in the mountains. Between my anxiety about my family in the coming battle and my annoyance at the fact that Jacob Black can keep Bella warm when I can't, I am utterly frustrated. The worst part is that I can hear, quite clearly, every thought that crosses through the mind of the werewolf. I suspect that some of them are designed to push my buttons without risking Bella finding out.

It is taking all of my will power to prevent the outburst that would surely wake her up and give him the satisfaction of getting under my skin. There are times when I feel like I am dealing with a child. However, in the nature of things in the supernatural world, he can't help himself. He is no more than an immature child, petulant in the extreme, and impulsive as hell.

Jacob and I completed our conversation at a point of stalemate, agreeing to maintain our truce until morning. Right now, I am insanely jealous of his overly warm body and his ability to hold Bella without turning her into a human icicle. He opens his eyes and then closes them again the smug look on his face matches his thoughts. He is picturing a scenario where they are in the tent alone together and he has convinced her to take off her clothes for better "warmth."

He turns up the volume in his mind and begins to envision exactly what he would do, how he would kiss her, touch her, and make love to her. It takes all of my self-control to avoid going over and snapping his neck and hope that the residual heat in his lifeless body is enough to sustain Bella's warmth through the rest of the night. But I know that I could not do that, no matter how much I want to.

My love for her far exceeds my jealousy towards him. I suppose that it helps that I don't, no better said can't, hate him. Once I put my mind beyond that moment of instant gratification that I would feel in ending his life, I can see the intense pain and sorrow that _she _would feel at his demise. Because she loves him, I cannot hate what she loves. The profound, depth of my feeling for her cannot even begin to contemplate being the responsible party for inflicting that degree of agony on her.

His problem, being the shallow werewolf that he is, is that he cannot imagine the kind of love that Bella and I share. The animal in him limits his ability to know her in the way that I do. He is incapable of seeing the complexity of her multifaceted emotions in this situation. He simply knows that she loves us both.

He is under the delusion that somehow this gives her a choice, and that if she were to look at that choice rationally (from his perspective) she would choose him. But she has chosen me, or not, as the case may be. There was never really any choice ever involved. She knows this and has even tried to communicate this to him. At least that is what I have discerned from his thoughts.

There is nothing rational about my feelings for Bella and her feelings for me. But they are not irrational either. Our initial attraction and subsequent relationship quite definitely fell outside of the boundaries of reason. Of course, whenever one is dealing with the supernatural world, the rules and laws of the natural world no longer apply. Once I accepted the fact that Bella and I were incapable of existing apart from one another, my focus shifted from protecting her from myself to ensuring her safe existence in this world.

Jacob wanted to know how it felt to lose her: how it felt to truly believe that she was dead. He might better have asked how it felt to walk into the fiery pit of hell. That would be a beginning to an understanding. Or perhaps it would have been better to imagine an empty nothingness of time and space.

What was I left with? Other than the vague, untested notion, that Carlisle had that we are not destined fall into such oblivion, there was no hope at all. The only shot that I had left to find and be with her again was that tenuous possibility that there might be an afterlife for our kind. And if there was, she and I might achieve the same destiny.

Did I deserve to be in heaven after all the human life that I had taken? Did their vile iteration of humanity absolve me of the crime of their cold-blooded murder? Bella believed so. She so desperately loves me that perhaps even the paradise that the righteous claim that heaven is, would be incomplete without me. Could it be that her goodness alone would earn me a spot at the table of everlasting peace and grace?

Is it possible that in some bizarre way, I _am _the angel she says that I am in her sleep? What an interesting, to put it mildly, concept. The angel of death transformed into the guardian angel, the vigilante to protector. Is it possible that even a small portion of her humanity could leech (no pun intended) into my own _inhumanity _and save me from the eternal damnation that I so richly deserve for my many sins, if I am worthy of her love in this world, will I be worthy of a shared fate in the next?

I must discuss this with Carlisle. This is just the sort of philosophical debate that he enjoys. Could it really and truly be possible that if I change Bella into what I am, it will be my salvation rather than her damnation? If this is even a possibility, do I risk her soul for it? But I don't dare mention it to _her. _Such a notion would make her twice as eager for the transformation.

It was so easy to tell Jacob that I would let Bella go if she chose him because I knew that it would never happen. Nothing that she feels for _him_ can or will ever come between _us_. I know this as surely as I now know that I will not separate myself from her. In fact, although I continue to fight for her life and very humanity, I know, in whatever passes for a heart in a creature such as myself, that I had lost the battle before it even began. Alice saw her destiny as two options. If I did not kill her, I would change her. Since, by some miracle, I have not killed her already, she will undoubtedly be changed.

We cannot go on this way much longer. I cannot continue to deny her what she most desperately wants, as if I could really deny her anything. I can hold her off. I can delay the final action. But in the end she will win. I will let her win because it is the only thing that she truly wants. I cannot deny her that. I am not capable of denying her heart's desire. Perhaps that is why she is so loath to accept any other gift from me. It is more than what she most wants. It is the _only _thing she wants.


	2. Misunderstanding

**The Way I Love her**

_Disclaimer: All the characters in the story are the property of Stephanie Meyer. I have borrowed them for my entertainment and (hopefully) your reading pleasure. I make no profit from their use._

**Chapter 2: Misunderstanding**

Jacob looks up at me and smirks as Bella huddles closer to him. I cannot read her mind, but I know that this is due to an imperceptible (to human and wolf, for once, senses) drop in the temperature. The wind is dying and the storm is abating, but the cold intensifies as we move closer towards dawn.

I close my eyes and breath deeply, but her lovely human scent, the scent of her delicious blood that burns my throat every moment that she is in my presence; is obscured by the noxious fumes radiating from the werewolf who surrounds her. But she is warm. She is comfortable. And that is all that really matters.

He pulls her towards his body more tightly and closes his eyes, allowing pleasurable thoughts to flood his mind. His memory recalls her voice telling him that he is the sun, possessing an internal warmth to keep her going. But he fails to hear the wistful longing behind those words. His warmth was a comfort to her while I was away, but it could never take my place.

Her face is soft, but not desirous. He is unable to comprehend the utterly platonic feelings that underlie her words. She has no passion for him, no erotic feelings that match his own. He is first and foremost a physical creature. The intimate spiritual dynamic that exists between Bella and me will never be apparent or comprehensible to him.

Unwittingly, he has soothed my own feelings of guilt. I am not taking her from a potential romantic partner. His perception of the shared "kiss," as being enjoyable to both participants causes me to laugh out loud. His eyes fly open and he glares at me. He thinks that I am laughing at his incompetent kissing skills, but it is his exceptionally dense interpretation of her response that has me laughing.

He does not see fury in her eyes. He misinterprets that emotion as passion. And he does not recognize the degree to which she shuts down as his lips move against hers. He is also infuriated because the scene that he has replayed in such graphic detail was for his amusement at my discomfort. It bothers him that somehow I have turned the tables on him.

I know how capable she is of shutting off her amorous _desires._ She has been forced to do it often enough with me to protect _me _from my natural instincts when I open my mouth over her skin. But this protection is reversed. She is protecting herself from him and his assault, made all the more wretched because she must hurt him in the end. My hidden fists clench at the reenactment of the scene, but I loosen them when I read the complete confusion in his mind.

He is shocked when she punches him and even winces (as I do) at the sound of her knuckle cracking against his face. But he immediately shifts his mind to his own interpretation of her self-defense. He wrongly believes that she is reacting from guilt and fear of what I might do to her if I were to find out. And he is clueless to the fact that Bella has no fear of me at all. What could I possibly do to her?

Then, as if he is able to read my mind, he silently answers my question. His immature assumption is that I will turn her into a vampire to keep her for myself. I choke back another laugh and now he glares at me. If that was "all" it would take to make her mine, I could have done it a year ago when she was begging me at prom. Instead of restraining every instinct in my fiber as I kissed her neck, I could have bitten her and ended this petty rivalry once and for all. Not that I didn't think of it at the time.

As my lips touched her throat, for a single second, I remembered the taste of her sweet blood as I sucked the venom from her hand barely weeks before. It was an act of pure love and impossible self-denial. In the end, I couldn't bear the thought of taking her life. She asked why I didn't let the venom spread so that she could become a permanent part of my world. As if I could let _his _venom change her. I think that she understands that better now.

The option of Alice changing her was never a serious one. As I read the future as she projected it to Aro, I knew that her decision to change Bella was a split-second act of desperation. She had already smelled Bella's blood and knew very well that she could never stop once she tasted it.

But she used the superhuman force of her mind to push that back and bring forward the year-old image of the two of them, side by side, arms interlinked behind one another, with matching pale skin and golden eyes. They looked like sisters.

Bella knows that Carlisle is fully capable of safely changing her. After all, he created four of us and his thirst for her blood is nowhere near as powerful as mine. And he would do this for me, despite the fact that it goes against his philosophy of preserving human life that he holds so dear.

Yet he would take her life to save mine. He said as much when we voted more than a month ago. He would sacrifice his ideals at her request, because he wants me to have the mate to whom I have chosen to bind myself for the rest of her earthly life. He would give her that dubious gift of immortality to preserve my "life." And then he would not ever have to face losing me.

Even if I were to convince her to remain human and live out a normal life span, he knows that I would return to the Volturi the minute she drew her last breath. And a normal human life span is merely the blank of an eye to an immortal, especially one who has lived hundreds of years like Carlisle has. My choice has left him with no choice.

And the only choice left to Bella, is whether it would be Carlisle or me who would change her. She wants me. She wants my venom to enter her blood stream. Somehow she understands that there is a tie between creator and creation that is one more connection to solidify our union.

She has already agreed to become my wife to attain this. I know that I have the will power to do it. I can taste her blood one last time and then release her to the agony that follows, an agony that will rip through me until the transformation is complete.

I still do not fully comprehend my desire to marry her while she is still human. She thinks that it is a delay tactic, but I know that it is not. Once she is changed, we will leave this place forever, or at least until the present generation dies off. People live longer these days, so perhaps we will have to wait a hundred years this time, not a mere seventy. But a century is hardly very long for us.

I suppose that I just want everyone to know that we did it right, no matter how much longer we live than they do.


	3. The Marriage Condition

**Chapter 3: The Marriage Condition**

So, why _do_ I want to marry her _before _the transformation? It is my own sense of pride. I want everyone to know, before we disappear, that she chose me. I want all of my former rivals (Mike, Tyler, Eric, and Jacob, _especially _Jacob) to know that she is with me and can never be taken from me. It may sound corny to these modern guys, but the idea that two have joined as one _forever _is the only way that I can imagine spending eternity with my Bella.

I return to my first early vision of her walking down the aisle, dressed in white and on her father's arm, towards her future husband and I want to see that vision turned to reality. I want to be the one waiting for her at the altar. I want to be the one into whose hand Charlie reluctantly places hers. Having seen into Charlie's mind often enough, I know that he will be reluctant to let Bella marry any man, not just me.

I want to be _that_ man, her man, as I have since that first recognition of that fact that I loved her irrevocably. Perhaps it is more than pride. Perhaps it is my own determination that they all know that we have done things properly, that I have not stolen her virtue.

Of course it is completely ironic that Bella tried to surrender that virtue to me last night and numerous times before. My mind is still petty enough to wonder how Jacob would feel if he could see what happened last night as she lay beneath me on my bed endeavoring to undress us both. How shocked would he be if he knew that it was _I _who said no?

Werewolves have no such scruples. With the exception of Quil, who imprinted on a toddler, all of the other imprinted wolves have slept with the objects of their imprinting. And these young women had absolutely no qualms about surrendering themselves to their men.

But maybe that is because they understand that the ties that bind them to their men are more powerful and permanent than marriage. For each pair, the marriage ceremony is simply a cultural formality to be observed. Their minds and bodies are set.

I know from Jacob's thoughts that he would feel absolutely no compunctions about robbing Bella of her virtue before they married. He would have already taken her to bed if she had been so inclined. Such is the way of animals.

The only dark humor that may be found in that scenario that I see is that if Charlie found out, he would undoubtedly hold a gun to _his_ head the way that he had so often wanted to do to mine. Ironically, he could actually have killed his preferred suitor. If he tried to shoot me, it would be more likely that he would die if the bullet ricocheted in the wrong direction, right back at him.

Charlie's attitude toward me subtly changed after Bella told him that she was still a virgin. It was a scene I enjoyed watching through his eyes. Her face was priceless when she informed him of that state (out of desperation to end the discussion).

She looked like she wanted to crawl under a rock. I only wish that I could have seen his face. But at last, once he knew, I could read a grudging respect in his mind. He had not been so fastidious with Bella's mother, or with other girls before her. But it's different when the girl is your daughter.

Despite the late, or better put early, hour, Jacob is still eyeing me with a mixture of self-satisfaction and envy. He knows that the girl in his arms doesn't want to be there. His thoughts are still challenging me to "prove" my love by leaving her. He thinks that somehow it would be different from the last time I left because this time _he _would there from the beginning. But that simply further demonstrates that he doesn't understand what Bella and I share . . . at all.

Beneath the smug attitude, I can read something else. There is a vindictiveness towards me that says that his present pleasure is as almost much about sticking it to me as it is about his proximity to the girl that we both love. As usual, he doesn't get it right. As if he could ever compete with the depth of my love and devotion to her.

Could _he_ bear to sit and watch me hold her in my arms if it would prevent her from severe pain and possible death? The shallowness of his human/animal mind tells me that the answer is no. He doesn't even understand the earlier explanation that I gave him about my willingness to suffer this sight for these hours. For all of his swagger and bravado, he doesn't know me, or for that matter Bella, at all.


	4. What Sam Thought

**The Way I Love Her**

_Disclaimer: All the characters in the story are the property of Stephanie Meyer. I have borrowed them for my entertainment and (hopefully) your reading pleasure. I make no profit from their use._

**Chapter 4: What Sam Thought**

How well does Jacob truly know his Alpha leader? Does he know that Sam has wittingly or unwittingly betrayed him by laying out for me his memory of his whole thought process with regard to Jacob and Bella? I find that highly unlikely. Sam has one of the most shrewd and canny minds that I have ever read. His thought process, especially for a werewolf, is quite sophisticated.

The worst thing for Jacob and his so-called claim on Bella was when I got a peek into Sam's mind and saw what he was thinking as he waited for Jacob to speak to us in his human form. Oddly, I think that Sam might have realized that I would hear every word he was thinking, even though I would be conversing with Jacob. Or perhaps Sam has also underestimated the capacity if the vampire mind to follow many things, many minds, at the same time.

On the other hand, maybe he didn't. There is a Machiavellian twist to Sam's mind that puts the pack and the tribe above everything else. He projects this as a fatherly concern for their protection to his pack, but he is not afraid to use the absolute control over them that his status gives him.

As the Alpha, there are more layers to Sam's mind than there are to Jacob's, even on a good day. But Sam is older, a man. Jacob phased before he had come close to gaining that level of maturity. I don't know enough about werewolf minds to really assess that. But I do know this. At the very least, Sam is a hell of a lot smarter than Jacob.

"Jacob," I say at last, having finally had enough of his fantasies, which, to my more chivalrous mind, have turned unbearably lewd as he tries harder to irritate me.

"Don't tell me," he replies. "My thoughts are too loud for you again."

"Well, you could say that," I reply. "But it's nothing that I haven't heard from you before. I take that bad. These thoughts are exceptionally obscene, even for you. You still don't understand what the draw is for Bella towards me over you."

"No," he says. "I don't see what possibly could be the appeal. I am so right for her and you are just a freak of nature."

"Takes one to know one," I mutter reflexively.

He shudders. I enjoy the unwanted image that pops into his head of Bella telling him that if she should "stick to her own kind," then she is stuck with Mike Newton. Even in his memory, her sarcasm bites. He decides to go on the offensive.

"If you have something to say to me, then say it out loud, bloodsucker," he answers insolently, even though I know that he had the same supernatural hearing that I do.

I still find is rather amazing that he has much less control than I do when it comes to censoring his language. He knows that Bella doesn't like it when we call each other names. I only do it when he's royally pissed me off. He has a much lower threshold for tolerating my presence. And he is still very obvious about expressing his repugnance for us.

"Jacob," I say, purposely rolling my eyes. "I know that you were pretty mad at Sam when he refused to let you near Bella after you first phased. Why do you think that was?"

"He was afraid that I would get angry and hurt her," he answers immediately.

"Why did he assume that you would hurt her?" I ask.

"As if you have to ask," he says. "Your so-called sister called it right away. Sam was afraid that as a new werewolf I wouldn't be able to control my anger. And he remembered what he had done to Emily when that happened and she was too close. And he knew, once he knew my mind, how frequently Bella was able to piss me off."

"Why do you think that he assumed you would get angry enough to phase?" I ask. "After all, even then you were professing your undying love for Bella. Just getting pissed off at her wouldn't necessarily have done it."

There is silence in the tent. I can hear the anger and denial in Jacob's thoughts. At least he isn't quite as dense as I thought that he was.

"Jacob, I think that he was trying to protect you, and her, from his own mistake," I answer. "He knew that there was a possibility that the first time you saw Bella after you first phased, you would imprint on her.

"Now, on the surface that might have seemed to you like a good thing at the time, but what would have happened if she had rejected you? And what if she had gotten in your face, as she is prone to do when she gets mad? Would you have merely been 'pissed off,' as you so elegantly put it?"

More silence as he turns my words over in his mind, and more denial. Just as he has obstinately refused to accept the fact that Bella's commitment to me is irrevocable, he is now refusing to believe that Bella would respond with anything less than the absolute devotion of any object of imprinting to her man.

"Sam knew exactly what could happen," I continue. "Because it happened to him. Emily rejected him because of her loyalty to Leah. He wasn't able to control himself and she got too close as she was yelling at him. Did it ever occur to you that he didn't want you to have to look at Bella wearing the scars that you gave her?"

"That wouldn't have happened," he replies tightly. "She would have responded to me eventually. If I had imprinted, I know that in time she could not have resisted, just like Emily couldn't."

"Without scars?" I ask.

"Without scars," he says. "As if you hadn't already left plenty of scars of your own. Just because you can't see, doesn't mean that they are not there. It would have been a massive fight when you came back."

"No, it wouldn't," I say. "Because if you had truly imprinted, then you would not have been able to see her so miserable. You would have let her go."

"No, I wouldn't," he replies. "I wouldn't have to because she would have chosen me."

I am struck dumb for a moment. Is there a choice or not for the girl who is imprinted? I hadn't been in Forks for six months when he first phased. He had no competition at that point. What the hell is he talking about? I suspect that he doesn't even know the answer to that question himself.


	5. Imprinting

**The Way I Love Her**

_Disclaimer: All the characters in the story are the property of Stephanie Meyer. I have borrowed them for my entertainment and (hopefully) your reading pleasure. I make no profit from their use._

**Chapter 5: Imprinting**

Jacob's lapse in logic has provided me with a new opening. What was the relationship between the imprinter and the imprinted?

"I thought that there was no choice involved in imprinting," I reply. "For the wolf imprinting or his object. What happened to the automatic assumption that you were now hers? You have just undercut your own argument. But there wouldn't have been a battle in any case. If she had wanted you, I would have let her go."

He looked at me as if he was having difficulty following my syllogism. It was obvious that his vicarious view of the imprinting phenomenon had not accounted for such a possibility, perhaps because it had never existed before. From what I have been able to pick out of Sam's mind, no wolf has ever imprinted on a non-Quileute before. But the average Quileute only looks to date and marry among his own people anyway. Jacob is an exception.

"If you love her so much, how could you just give her up like that?" he challenges me.

"Because I can't bear to tear her in two," I reply. "My life would not be worth living, but she would be happy. And that's all that would matter. I would be able to watch her happiness from afar, always protecting, always grateful that she had found joy in life. And when she died of natural old age, I would die with her. If necessary, I would return to the Volturi and give them a reason to kill me."

"But you won't let go of her now," he says. "You know I could make her happy."

"And I know that you are not who she wants," I reply. "You have not imprinted on her. But that doesn't mean that you cannot imprint on someone else. It seems like most of your friends are imprinting one by one. So you might make promises to her now, but if you imprint, then what? Instead of turning her into Emily, as Sam feared, you were to turn her into Leah. I have seen how that girl's mind works and I would not wish that misery on any girl.

"She is way beyond bitterness. She is tortured every time that Sam thinks of her. Before he had Emily, Sam and Leah had shared an intimate relationship. Now I know better than most men how girls view that kind of thing, especially a girl like Leah who was raised in a somewhat traditional culture. To use the vernacular, she gave it up to him and he threw her away.

"I come from a different era than you, an era where men did not consider robbing a young woman they loved of her virtue before marrying her. They might dream of it, but they would never act on that dream, not the way your friends have anyway. And not the way that _you _have been fantasizing about doing to Bella all night."

Jacob grits his teeth and contemplates his next assault.

"Not Quil," he says through gritted teeth. "He does not view Claire that way."

"No, not Quil," I agree. "I am almost grateful for his odd object of imprinting because it gives me deeper insight into the practice. His love is pure and his devotion absolute. His adoration is completely appropriate for the age of child. Stronger, I would daresay than perhaps even her parents.

"Not having met the parents, I cannot tell. But his love, untainted by hints of sex and romance as the others, is such that should Claire find another to love, as unlikely as that may seem, he would give her up.

"In fact, he might become a nuisance in that relationship because of his determination to protect her, him, and their children, anything to make her happy. I doubt that he would have my self-control in such a case to watch from afar. It will be interesting to see how that turns out. His view of her will change, but will hers? Now he is her brother, but someday will she see him as a lover?"

"She won't leave him ever," he says definitively, thinking of an example. "She'll never want anyone else."

"I see," I say. "Because this has happened before."

"But that wouldn't happen anyway," he says defensively, returning to the original point. "And I could never imprint on any other girl if Bella was mine."

"It wouldn't?" I ask. "What makes you think that you could resist the compulsion anymore than Sam could? Do you want to be Sam? And then what about the girl you imprint on? Do you want her to have to watch Bella suffer, just as Emily does whenever she sees Leah? Besides, imprinting means that you are Bella's, not that she is yours. And you know that, even though you deny it. Face it, Jacob. Bella is not the girl for you."

"She could be, if it wasn't for you," he replies.

And I can see that he means it. He truly believes that I am the only obstacle in his quest to fulfill his dream of having her.


	6. The Sleeping Beauty

**The Way I Love Her**

_Disclaimer: All the characters in the story are the property of Stephanie Meyer. I have borrowed them for my entertainment and (hopefully) your reading pleasure. I make no profit from their use._

**Chapter 6: The Sleeping Beauty**

I think quietly for a moment. I can see that while I have made him uncomfortable and perhaps even doubt his position; he will still not give up. I ruefully give him credit for his tenacity. The fact that Bella is now sleeping so peacefully in his warm (take that back, hot) arms is further proof to him that unconsciously, the sleeping beauty prefers the wolf to the hunter.

The irony is not lost me. In the fairy tales, it is the hunter who gets the girl, not the wolf. But in this case, Jacob is rather lucky that this is not a fairy tale. In those stories, the hunter always kills the wolf. Hence the symbolism that the hunter is the master of reason, fully in control of himself, while the wolf is no more than a beast subject to his own instincts.

I decide to give it one last shot. I want to give him one last chance to understand Bella and save him from the unavoidable rejection. No doubt Sam is going to be pretty angry with me when he finds out how much I have picked out of his brain about werewolf nature and lore.

It must be some condition of the Alpha that allows him to conceal certain things from his brothers. Jacob does not have that luxury. Perhaps if the desire is strong enough, the Alpha can bury them. At any rate, Sam was able to communicate some things to me without their knowledge.

"Remember the day when, through your thoughts, you made a point of revealing Bella's condition to me during the months that I was gone?" I say quietly. "You could not inflict physical pain on me or start a fight in front of the school that would have revealed our true natures to the humans. However, you produced the very graphic images of her sorrow for me, particularly the image of her lying on the forest floor when Sam found her."

"Yes," he said, reviewing the pictures for me again.

I mentally wince, but continue.

"I have been able to put that specific image into the context of Sam's thoughts," I say. "In fact the minute that he saw me for the first time, he replayed the image for me. I believe that he still hasn't forgiven me for that and was trying to inflict more pain. The pain of his perception has two layers. The first is the one you know, the anger that I would leave her in such a state. But the second is more personal. His instincts tell him that if he were ever able to tear himself away from Emily, this would be her reaction.

"He found my departure from Bella's side both incomprehensible and reprehensible. By his cultural norms, I committed one of the most grievous wrongs that any man can commit against a woman. He does not like the fact that when I returned, she joined herself to me again as if I had never left.

"He does not want to admit this, because it would create a parallel between our two kinds that he is loath to acknowledge. But he understands her much better than you do."

Suddenly we hear Bella's voice again. She has been murmuring in her sleep all night. This little utterance, however, is coming at a very bad time.

"Jacob," she sighs. "My Jacob."

"You see?" he says. "She just said _my _name. She does lay claim to me."

"She says my name more often," I answer smoothly. "And she begs me not to go. I watch and listen every night as she sleeps."

"You _sleep _with her?" he yells.

Luckily, Bella must be so exhausted that she thankfully doesn't wake up. His vulgar mind immediately produces images of Bella and me together. We are entwined in one another, quite literally. This is the most repulsive image that his shallow mind has produced so far and it takes all of my strength not to separate his head from his body.

But he is too close to Bella for me to risk his anticipation of my attack and not phase in fury. There is no doubt in my mind that such a mistake would kill her. It is cold comfort to realize that if he killed her that I would then have the option of letting him kill me.

"I don't sleep," I reply evenly. "But I also do not 'sleep' with her in the sense that you mean. I never have. I spend every night in her room watching her, guarding her. And I have ever since I saved her from being crushed by that van over a year ago. Except for the time that I was away. And Alice told me that she had horrific nightmares nearly every night while I was gone, nightmares that had Charlie fearing for her sanity."

"That's creepy," he replies so vehemently that I am afraid that he will vomit at the very thought. "That's sick. You actually sneak into her house, with Charlie there and stay in her bedroom."

"She doesn't view it that way," I respond mildly. "She is comforted by my presence. She has her own expectations about what should be happening when I am there. And trust me, they don't involve sleeping. And yet night after night, I resist her, determined to protect her virtue."

"You really are twisted," he says in disgust. "As if you could do 'that' to her without crushing her to death or worse. This is worse than sick, it's totally perverted."

"No it's not," I reply. "I told you. The vampire is frozen at the time that he is changed in whatever state, that he or she is in at the time of transformation. There is almost nothing that can change that, but when there is a change, it is permanent. Carlisle thinks that one of the few things that can alter us is when we discover our true mate, our other half.

"In these cases, however, unlike wolf imprinting, the feelings are powerful and mutual. If Bella had not responded to me in the way I responded to her, I could not have felt this way about her. I sensed this response from the beginning. It was why I couldn't stay away from her.

"But she could not stay away from me either. And believe me, I wish that she could have. It was not only her blood calling, it was her heart. We were bound to one another before either of us knew it. The compulsion to imprint is one-sided, not reciprocal. And you know it."

"How can you be so sure that she responded?"

"Oh, I'm sure," I say. "Any normal human would have run as fast as she could in the opposite direction from the kind of attention that I gave her. But that only drew her further in. I was never able to repel her. In fact, the more I tried, the closer she came. Eventually I gave up and prayed that I would not destroy her."

"So how can you think that is what happened with Bella, this whole permanent change thing?" he asks. "She's not even a vampire. Aren't you only attracted to your own kind?"

"No more so than you are," I reply and have the satisfaction of seeing _him _mentally wince. "However, there are many stories of vampires, both male and female, changing humans who then become their mates. The normal human does not want this kind of life.

"Yet, in my experience a human who has found his or her true mate is willing to surrender his or her soul. Therefore, the stories are mostly true. The feelings of attraction _can_ happen before the change takes place. Bella has literally begged me to bite her."

"So why haven't you changed Bella?" he challenges me.

"If it was simply my goal to keep her for myself, I could have," I say with a shrug. "She has given me numerous opportunities and begged not only me, but Carlisle and Alice as well, to take her life. It is the one thing that I have denied her. And they deny her for my sake."

"How do you resist?" he asks curiously.

"Because I want her to live," I say simply, now realizing what short memories werewolves have when they don't like what they hear. "I want her to live a real life. My father has had too powerful an impact on my way of thinking to allow me to selfishly end her life for my own desire. I will not impulsively take her life away from her, no matter how I feel about you and the claim that you have staked."

"That's not the only thing that I wanted to stake. You really are twisted," he says. "You encourage her to love you, but you don't make it easy for her. In fact, you risk her life just by being close to her, luring her with your smooth talk of virtue."

I sigh deeply. He has hit the nail on the head of course. Early on I warned her that I was a predator who was designed to do just that, lure her in. Yet in her trusting innocence, she refused to believe that I would ever hurt her. Her greatest fear was only losing me. If I had believed her, if I had stayed here, then I would have been able to protect her from Victoria. Jacob senses my weakness.

"You lured her in, put her in mortal danger, and then left her vulnerable," he says viciously. "We were the ones who protected her."

"Not very well," I respond. "This one vampire has been testing your defenses, running in and out of your territory for months as she pleases and you haven't been able to capture and kill her. And because of your incompetence, we are now all threatened by this army she created. If we had not told you about it, she would have unleashed it on the town and you all would have been killed. You would never have known what hit you."

He refuses to answer in words, but I can read the anger, denial, and fear in his mind. If we had not returned, then Bella would have been dead for sure. The werewolves ability to keep her at bay, without actually destroying her, has made Victoria so desperate that she will risk her own existence to avenge James. But he will never admit that. He is too consumed by his hate for us, but in particular, for me.


	7. Carlisle's Conscience

**The Way I Love Her**

_Disclaimer: All the characters in the story are the property of Stephanie Meyer. I have borrowed them for my entertainment and (hopefully) your reading pleasure. I make no profit from their use._

**Chapter 7: Carlisle's Conscience**

Jacob decides to shift his line of attack to Carlisle, having exhausted all avenues at me. It is further proof that he has no understanding whatsoever of what the Cullens are about. I suppose that we are lucky that Ephraim Black was a lot sharper than his great-grandson. Or maybe it is because Ephraim had accepted his role as the Alpha without question. Perhaps Jacob's reluctance to accept his legacy is hampering his ability to properly fulfill his role.

"Your father took lives," he says.

"He took four lives, by your definition of taking," I say. "But he never sent any soul to its final reward, so to speak. He has never fed on human blood. or even killed a human by accident.

"He has spent centuries fighting his own nature to the point that he is able to work in hospitals, in the presence if large amounts of human blood, saving the human lives that he would more naturally take as a vampire. But each of us would have died anyway in the various physical states that we were in at the time of transformation.

"As a doctor, there was nothing that he could have done to save us. Without his intervention, we would have died anyway. He offered us each an alternate destiny, an ability to at least survive within the mortal realm. And while you may wish to define us as dead now, the present condition in which we exist is nothing like death."

"How close were you to _real _death?" he asks, his curiosity peaked again, despite his reflexive disgust at my explanation.

"I had a lethal form of influenza and only hours left to live," I reply. "The fever that had killed my parents was raging through my body. At that time there was no way to stop it. My mother had begged Carlisle to save me any way that he could before she died.

"She knew that I would be following her shortly if he didn't. And so he did. He took my dying body back to his home, bit me, and then waited for the change to take place. Technically, he is my creator, but in my mind, he is my father."

"It's a pity he didn't just let you die," he says sarcastically. "And the others?"

"Esme had jumped off a cliff," I say, somewhat amazed at his obviously morbid curiosity. "They brought her straight to the morgue, but there was still enough life in her for Carlisle to save her. She had recently lost a child, and tried to commit suicide to escape the pain of that loss.

"When she met me and learned that I was Carlisle's 'son' she immediately adopted me as her own child. She did so even before she and Carlisle fell in love. Although that did not take long to follow, since, unknowingly, he had created his own true mate.

"Rosalie was next. She had been viciously attacked in the street and left for dead. Carlisle smelled the blood and could see that her situation was hopeless. She could not live. He brought her home, as hoping that she would be mate for me actually, but we didn't see each other that way. No one can force such a relationship on two people and therefore no one tries.

"In fact, because I refused to worship her beauty, she was pretty pissed. And she was resentful of the fact that, because I could read minds, I knew how vain she was. She really hated me for a while. But she was the one who found Emmet. Now, thanks to Emmet, she now merely dislikes me. He was _her _true mate.

"When she came upon him, Emmet was being mauled by a grizzly. He had been out hunting to feed his family. Before the bear could finish him off, Rosalie saved him and brought him home to Carlisle to change. We still don't understand how she was able to tolerate the sheer volume of blood. She must have loved him even then.

"He was a mess and had lost a lot of blood, but Carlisle was able to save him anyway. He had a very strong heart. I know that the word 'save' offends you, but the alternative for each of us would have been what you might call 'true death,' a complete departure from the mortal world."

"In your case, I wish that you had made that departure," he says sardonically.

"Oddly enough, we all do as well, which is why I do not take Bella's wish to join me in this life lightly," I admit. "Rosalie is the worst because she was so in love with her human life that she has deep regrets about continuing beyond it. Finding her mate has immensely helped her to reconcile herself to her fate. However she still regrets the children and grandchildren that she will never have."

"And that Bella will never have, if she chooses you," he says bitterly.

"Don't think that I haven't made _that _point before," I reply. "Rosalie has as well, one of her few acts of kindness towards Bella. Not that she would listen to her either. But she is only eighteen and at a point in her life where children are not a part of her vision of the future. If she changes now they probably never will be.

"Rosalie was, or rather is, eighteen too, but she was on the verge of being married. She wanted children very much before she was changed. In fact, she wanted children more than a husband. In an ironic twist of fate, she got the husband, but no children.

"Of course, the loss of her child was the reason that Esme was changed in the first place. Her yearning for children has never ended. That is why she has embraced all of us as her children. Esme wants Bella changed for more reasons than to keep me happy. She looks forward to the addition of another 'child' to our family. Like the rest of us, she will nurture and care for her as if she were her own daughter."

"What about you?" he asks. "Do you want children?"

"I'm seventeen," I answer. "When I was alive during the First World War, I was only interested in turning eighteen so that I could join the army. I never even had a girlfriend, or a sweetheart as we used to call them. Courtship wasn't on my radar screen at that particular time of my life.

"It was the same with Emmet, if you really want to know, and Carlisle and Jasper, who were also young. We come from time periods where men established themselves in careers before they even considered looking for a wife. In proper society, it was only fitting that the suitor should ask the girl's father.

"Part of that request included an explanation of how he intended to provide for a wife and family. I know that this may seem very old-fashioned and formal to you, but it is how I was raised."

"So will you ask Charlie?" he asks insolently.

"I will ask Bella first," I reply, pleased that I don't have to reveal that I have already asked and she has accepted. "Then I will ask Charlie for his blessing. You might call it my compromise to the modern world."

"What if I ask him first?" he asks, half-humorously. "Bet he says yes."

"Perhaps you would like Bella take break her other hand punching your face," I suggest amiably.

He grits his teeth.

"You think that you have this all figured out, don't you?" he says. "Don't underestimate me."

"I would rather that you don't underestimate me," I reply. "Bella is my first love, so to speak. That's a very powerful thing in any world. And in my case, it's not like to change how I feel."

"So then you really were 'frozen' before you ever fell in love? There's never been another girl?"

"Not in the last ninety years," I shrug. "We aren't fickle like humans. If there had been another girl, we wouldn't be here now."

"That really sucks," he replies emphatically.

"Was that an intentional pun?"

He glowers back at me.

"Is that's it," he finally says. "You have to wait a hundred and eight years to fall in love with _my _girl."

"That's about it," I say, ignoring his claim on Bella as a possession. "I don't know how it would have been if I had left behind someone I truly loved. It's the same for the women in my family. They never knew true love either. Both Esme and Rosalie were abused by the men in their lives. Esme's deepest emotional connection was to her dead child.

"And Alice never knew love because she has no memory of her human life. I think that's also why she has bonded so closely to Esme. Esme's love and devotion to all of us is irresistible, but even more so to one who has no memory of a mother, or the love of anyone else for that matter."

"I thought that the 'bonding' was only with mates?" he asks.

"No, there can be parent-child bonds as well," I say. "Three of our cousins n Denali were created by the same woman when they were teenagers. They consider themselves sisters and that woman was their mother. The connection has literally lasted for centuries."

"Was?"

"She committed a terrible crime in our world," I explain. "And that resulted in the forfeit of her life, such as it was. It has left a very deep scar upon her daughters. Because of the nature of the vampire, that scar will never heal. For the rest of eternity they will mourn her passing as if it were yesterday."

He looks at me as if he is unable to comprehend the concept of grief for an eternity. But then again, humans, even half-humans, have a very different concept of forever, than vampires.


	8. Unrequited Imprinting

**The Way I Love Her**

_Disclaimer: All the characters in the story are the property of Stephanie Meyer. I have borrowed them for my entertainment and (hopefully) your reading pleasure. I make no profit from their use._

**Chapter 8: Unrequited Imprinting**

Jacob lies there is silence, pondering all that I have told him. His thoughts have shifted from his obsessive physical desire for Bella to plotting how he will get her away from me. He still does not understand. He is elated at the idea that I would give her up if he could convince her to leave me. I almost feel sorry for him because he refuses to realize that he is asking for the impossible.

His thoughts revolve around the physical attraction that they have for one another. In order to torment me further, he runs pictures through his mind of the few times that she _almost _kissed him. He is so focused on the longing, that he doesn't see the conflict. Her eyes are full of pity and regret. Her face betrays that she feels unworthy of his love.

He has deluded himself into believing that if he can get her to fully acknowledge the physical attraction and love that she feels for him, she will succumb to his advances. She will leave me for him. All he wants is one willing, freely offered, kiss and he believes that this will change her. The animal within him limits his vision of the love we share. He still believes that he could have won her if he had imprinted on her. But I don't need Alice's vision to know that if he had, he would have killed her.

I think of Bella's mind, impervious to my talents, not to mention Aro's more intensely powerful mind reading skill and Jane's ability to inflict impossible pain. Now that I understand it, I can see the connection clearly. I would never tell him, because I only have a theory about it, but I believe that it is impossible for a werewolf to imprint on Bella.

I believe that whatever barrier in her mind keeps vampire powers out, also keeps the werewolf's involuntary instincts out. Just as she blocks the rest of us, she has been involuntarily blocking his werewolf instincts.

But as I look at him continuing to turn his options over in his mind, I realize that this is why he won't, this is why he can't, give up. I haven't read it before, because the compulsion to imprint is involuntary. It isn't a true thought. It is an animal instinct.

The tie that binds him to Bella is stronger than unrequited love. It is unrequited imprinting. It makes me fearful to think of what he would do if he knew this. He can't control his attraction to her. Her mind rejects his attraction, which would be enough to rope in any other woman, unconsciously.

I cannot allow either him or Bella to know that I have discerned this. This needs to play out on a purely physical, human level. He needs to know that she has agreed to become my wife. I know that the pain will be excruciating for him, but I can't run the risk of him knowing that she is unconsciously rejecting his animal impulse.

And if she knew how impossible this pain would be for him to bear, she would continue her campaign to not hurt him. And knowing her and her attraction to danger, she might even try to explain it to him. And that would mean a fight to the death between him and me. That might not bother him. In fact, I know that on several occasions the only thing that has kept him from attempting to destroy me is her physical presence.

But what would actually happen in such a case? Knowing the pain that I would be inflicting on her by killing him, even to preserve my own life, could I? He has no awareness of this. He has no concept that killing me does not free her. Killing me kills her. It would to nothing to break down the mental barrier in her mind. He may think that I am the masochist, but actually he is. But unlike me, he is not fighting his nature. He is trying to follow it.

Fortunately, his weariness has finally overtaken him and I no longer have to deal with his conscious thoughts. So I do some planning of my own. I will somehow bring the fact of our engagement to light while Bella is unaware that he is within hearing distance. I can't gauge his reaction, but hopefully pain will subvert his desire to kill me, at least temporarily.

Given that time, I can hopefully get to Sam and explain enough of the situation, so that he can give the Alpha mandate that Jacob not kill me. Among other things, such an action would decimate the pack. At the very least, Emmet and Jasper, with the help of Rosalie and Alice would destroy as many of them as they could, starting with Jacob. Carlisle would not fight. He would be too busy consoling Esme and too shattered by his own grief. Their grief would inflame the anger of the others.

And Bella? I have no doubt that she would finish the job that she started when I left the first time. She would lose both of us. In such a scenario, the only hope that I could have would be that there would be an afterlife for me as well. The last time I left her, she had begged me to take her soul.

I see her lying there, vulnerable in the wolf's arms, unaware that with the dawn would come a greater threat to her life than any newborn vampire army could bring. But I will do all I can to preserve her. I will even let Jacob take what he thinks is his best shot at convincing her to choose him by allowing him that kiss he so desires. And if it succeeds in deluding him for a few more hours then it will be worth it.

The thought of her giving herself to him for even a few seconds makes me sick. The idea that she would willingly surrender herself to his embrace and then yield her lips, her full mouth to his is repulsive, worse than sitting across from her lying in his arms. Not only can he hold her more closely, he can kiss her more deeply than I can as long as she is human.

I close my eyes and swallow hard. No doubt the imagery in Jacob's mind will be vivid and taunting. But I will endure the pain as I have endured my fiery thirst for her blood for all these months. If I could give my life to save hers, I would. But giving my life would only succeed in destroying hers. So I will survive this transitory pain. I will trade a few moments of excruciating torment for centuries of bliss with her.

For this is the way I love her. I love her with all of the absolute faith and devotion that a man can give to his woman. I may be a vampire, but I am also a man. And such is the creature I am that I will not yield to the temptation of sensual pleasure until the proper words are spoken, the formalities observed, and the commitment sealed.

As I watch her lying warm and comfortable in his arms, I do my best to imagine him as the space heater that I asked him to fetch for her. But I refuse to see him as no more than that. She is promised to _me. _Some day soon, she will wear my ring, and I will wear hers, for as long as we both shall exist.

**The End**

**Like this story? Check out my other story "A World Full of Strangers" for more Edward and Jacob conflict, this time over Renesmee.**

**For those Jacob fans who may be insulted by my interpretation of his feelings, please know that I have based some of his characterization on the Jacob POV section in **_**Breaking Dawn. **_**It is also worth noting that I am an Edward fan. Try not to hold it against me. HM**


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